The President went to Kisumu this week to launch projects and inspect the military parade, only to end up dancing to groovy tunes and enjoying good company.
While Kenyans were relieved to see him organically excited, a cloud of worry crept in when he announced that the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) shall remain under the management of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) until he is convinced that civilians have stopped pinching from public corporations to cry in private names.
The President is not any other person. He sits at the arrowhead of government, can rule by fiat and answers to nobody but the law. Which means before he jogs onto the podium, he must take his speech through a trammel sieve, shake it for dead proclamations and legal impurities, and let the public swallow only content fit for human consumption.
The KMC is a civilian outfit. Its main responsibility is to help animals lay down their lives for humans and, instead of burying them, chop them into consumable bits and sell to those on top of the food chain.
Last year, the courts pronounced themselves on the matter of subjecting cattle to slaughter by the military. It ruled that while the military might have superior weapons that lessen the pain of death, civilians should continue sending animals to their creator because that’s what the law says and you can’t argue with the law since it’s also an animal.
Arguments have been made that since the military took over the running of KMC, there has been a remarkable turnaround in organisational efficiency, workman’s compensation and staff morale. While Kenyans are famous for converting every government claim into a never-ending media argument, we draw the line when it comes to arguing with science.
If the military has run KMC in a manner worthy of praise and worship, the best we can do is to thank them for reducing the amount of money we will be spending to send MPs on benchmarking trips abroad. Instead of booking MPs in first-class cabins and paying them sleeping allowance to go learn how institutions should be run, taxpayers can now afford to put one matatu on the road to Athi River and fundraise for their packed lunch. If their fear is that the dust in Athi River will ruin their pancake makeup, we can take Athi River to them without asking the taxpayer for an arm and a leg.
That’s the only way Kenyans can help the President help KMC. The other way is for the President to instruct his lawyers to appeal the judgment until he cannot appeal anymore. Issuing threats, sadly for him, is not an option in the book of life.
If we are to protect the law, we have to equally protect those we pay to interpret it for us. You don’t hear judges telling witchdoctors what colour of crocodile tears their clients should come with whenever they visit dimly lit hideouts.
Neither do cosmetologists ask judges for help to stick porcupine hair on human heads. Kenyans understand when the President has faith in the KDF. After all, he’s their Commander-in-Chief and his adoration adds a bullet of morale to their already full magazines. Our neighbours also believe our military is the “baddest” in the region. If someone whispers to them that we have reduced our military to counting beef cubes, they might start developing bad ideas.
It’s slightly more than a year before the President winds up his legacy and the worst way to see it off would be to spend time in the corridors of justice lighting unnecessary fires when we don’t even have enough water in Nairobi to put them off.
